


bridge

by pseudocitrus



Series: proof that we were two [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Weddings, post ch132
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-30 01:39:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11453322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: Kaneki and Touka, as their wedding party starts to disperse.





	bridge

**Author's Note:**

> **TG:RE CHAPTER 132 YALL.** YOU GUYS. YALL. I’M. SO. FILLED WITH LIFE. i barely slept. i woke up and wrote this all in one go this morning and it so happens that it fits perfectly into kirishima week!! pls forgive the inevitable misspellings and like nonsensical canon time massaging!!! this is just all fluff!!! what a chapter!!!!!!!
> 
> i hope you’re having a GREAT! DAY!! ☼

While he’s gone, Touka watches below as the party, so desperately lively for the past uncountable hours, finally begins to die. Yomo’s mouth, pried open by alcohol, finally begins to slow. Nishiki escapes him, fixes his glasses back onto his face and scans around with a certain quiet, and then looks up at her, and waves, and leaves, smile fading, hands in pockets. Hinami shyly follows Miza and the White Suits into a separate set of tunnels which become raucous, and loud with laughter. If Ayato were here (Touka stifles, again, her silent worries, and tells herself that he’s fine, wherever he is), maybe he’d follow along with that crowd. When Touka hears the platform’s ladder begin to creak, the majority of the people that remain below are passed out on…well, everything. Everywhere.

“Got it,” Kaneki announces. He hands her a small pink cardboard box, and a lumpy plastic bag from a convenience store. The box contains an ice pack, and a dome-shaped cake decorated with eyes and long ears: a rabbit. Touka snorts and smiles.

“This one is too cute to eat.”

“Right?” The ceremony is over and the party has mostly dispersed, but Kaneki’s face is still flushed with delight. He sits beside her. “I brought other kinds too. So you can try them all. Maybe one will be better than the others. Oh, I also got you some water.”

“Thanks,” Touka tells him. Just looking at the cakes makes her stomach throb, though she isn’t sure if it’s in a good way, or a bad one. For now, she sets them all aside.

“Oh,” Kaneki says. “No good? I can — I can get more.”

“No, they’re good,” Touka says. “I just want to enjoy things a little longer.”

Kaneki nods. His hand moves to rest on hers, and she turns it so their fingers can intertwine. They look down together at what remains of the party, wordless. Touka yawns, and all the decorations dangling from her body chime, and she thinks of something.

“You didn’t go out in _that_ getup,” she says. “Did you?”

“Haha, no. Though probably someone might have just guessed I was cosplaying? In any case — um — no, I took it off. The parts I couldn’t hide with a coat.”

“And put it back on again?”

“Ah…” A nervous laugh. “…Yes.”

Even though the ceremony was Tsukiyama’s idea, Kaneki really is enjoying this. He’s lucky he isn’t covered with as much makeup as Tsukiyama lathered on _her_ , or else all those tears he shed earlier would have smeared his face right off. Touka’s hand squeezes.

“I’m just surprised you managed to get it on by yourself,” Touka says. “Hinami had to help me with mine. And Tsukiyama.”

She was glad that they hadn’t noticed what felt like the obvious fact of her pregnancy, though maybe she was just too self-conscious about even the slightest hint of her growing belly. When Kaneki doesn’t reply, she nudges him.

“What?” she asks. “Jealous?”

“Ah, no,” he says. “I mean, they both helped me with mine too.”

“Oh? Hmm.”

Long ago, she’d watched movies with Yoriko, ones that concluded with weddings. Touka understood from those that human brides and grooms were assisted by their own families first. Maybe this, the ceremony they just had, is the way ghouls always do it: by gathering together whoever is left. She wonders if her parents had something like this too — if they were surrounded by laughter and dancing — if they’d beamed when someone raised a glass and wished for them to have a happy, long life.

:::

Some of the people chatting below begin peeling away, in pairs. It gets just a little chillier. Touka leans against him, and he raises an arm around her shoulder, and rests his head on hers.

Married.

She still remembers watching his silhouette beside Rize’s on a bridge, far above her. She still remembers, too, a different bridge, when he’d looked up at her sadly, and her knuckles had stung. She also remembers rushing to :re’s window, that first time, when he’d walked away across the overpass, staring straight ahead, with his squad, and her handkerchief in his pocket. Later, she had turned away from him in that high corridor in Cochlea, with the prayer that he would eventually follow. And now.

 _My husband,_ Touka thinks. _His wife._

“Want to go back?” Kaneki asks. “We could go to your cot.”

“No,” Touka says. “It’s too crowded there.”

She’d watched as that old Dove squad rushed out to find their leader and drag him in panic to Yomo’s cell, which was beside hers. The Dove grabbed a liter of water before going. She hadn’t seen them all emerge yet.

“And not your cot either,” Touka says. “Someone’s always asking you for something.”

“It doesn’t matter even if they do ask,” Kaneki tells her. “Tonight, I’m choosing you.”

The sheer sappiness of that makes Touka grimace, and blush. “Ugh,” she manages, and Kaneki laughs, brightly. After a beat, he presses a kiss to her head. She closes her eyes.

 _My husband_. One thing she’ll give Tsukiyama: he knows something about dressing up. It’s not like Kaneki’s an unattractive person overall, but — when she had started out into view of the ceremony with everyone watching, when she’d first spotted Kaneki — his figure emphasized by skillful fitting, his shoulders bare, his eyes sparkling at her from beneath hair that had received just the right amount of attention — she stopped walking. She almost pulled the veil away from her own face to see him better. She thought it, for the first time, with a breathless rush. _His wife_.

“You know,” Kaneki says eventually, slowly. “Earlier, it was pretty hard to take off parts of this outfit. But, um…I could help you with yours. If you want.”

Touka feels herself smile.

“Okay.”

:::

Earlier, he’d fumbled with her veil, so much so that the onlookers had laughed and Touka had wanted to say, _This is nothing compared to his first time with a bra._

This time, away from an audience, his fingers are steady. The first thing he does is lift the headpiece from her head, and Touka shakes out her hair, gratefully, and tips into the palm he cradles to the side of her face. She opens her mouth as he leans toward her, and they kiss, softly, a first time, and then a second, and a third. Warmth pools in her chest. Her dreams had never supplied this, the fervor with which he always kisses her, as if he can’t have enough. And she would have never guessed either, that she would love so much being kissed by him.

Each one makes her feel like she’s being unraveled. She feels herself grow lightheaded; she feels her body uncoil. He suckles at a certain part of her body; though only a faint scar remains, her skin still throbs exquisitely there beneath his mouth. His hand rests on the small of her back, guiding her gently down. His other hand strokes her bare belly, and then curls over her breasts, stroking what he can of the exposed curve of them. She smooths her hands over his body, his arms, his chest, the firm muscle on his abdomen, and the hardness further down. Distantly, she’s aware that both of them are making noises, and can’t quite bring herself to care.

It might be easier to remove the outfits with someone else’s help, but it’s not that much easier. They twist and turn and fumble with zippers hidden too cleverly in the seams, with buttons that refuse to turn sideways, with clasps that resist pinching. Even once something is loosened, they struggle to squirm out of it, raising arms and twisting hips so the other can tug it off the stubborn angles of their body. Even then, every article stripped off only seems to reveal more to undo.

“Just use your rinkaku to tear it all off,” Touka says, partly in irritation and partly to see him laugh, but he just smiles faintly.

“I’m having more fun removing it like this.”

Sleeve by sleeve. Piece by piece. Touka slides his chestpiece off over his head, and something glitters and falls and pendulums over his chest: a gold ring, on a chain. They kick off the last vestiges of clothing, which forms a cushioning pile beneath them. They look at each other, drinking. Kaneki uses the back of his finger to trace her breast.

_My husband. His wife._

“This is probably how you would have wanted to do it, huh?” Touka asks.

“Do…what?”

“Lose your virginity,” Touka clarifies. “You know. Having your precious first time after some big gorgeous wedding.”

Kaneki the romantic. His eyes shone when Tsukiyama mentioned a ceremony, and Touka’s mouth closed over her protest. _It might be fun,_ she thought, looking at him.

“Oh,” Kaneki laughs. “No…no. The way we did it was perfect.”

 _We._ She feels the simple syllable of it through her spine.

“I was really happy then,” he says, “the way things turned out. And, um. I’m really happy right now, too.”

“I can tell,” she says. His eyes are turning glassy. She starts to rub at the corner of them, to swab away a tear before it rolls onto her, but he stops her, and swipes at it himself. He looks at his finger and exhales, a little heavily, with something like relief.

“What is it?” Touka asks.

“Nothing,” Kaneki says, and he wipes away another tear, smearing a wet spot onto the clothing beneath them. “It’s nothing. I’m just…so happy here. With you.”

It’s tough for her to say it, something so plain and yet so painfully genuine, but she manages it. “I’m…happy too.”

He smiles, messily. He kisses her, and kisses her, and this time the warmth pools elsewhere in her body. Not too long ago her heart jerked at the thought of baring herself to him but now Touka pushes him back a little, and sits up on her elbows. The jewelry hanging off her ears clink as she shifts, squeezing her arms, accentuating the curve of her breasts, making a place for Kaneki to press his face into with a muffled groan. His body, which he poises so gently when around her, starts to grind roughly against her. His fingers grip, and she murmurs encouragingly, and he kisses her fiercely, like the one mark he gave her isn’t enough.

The ring falls between them; she feels it, hard and heating, as their bodies align, as she raises her legs and he wraps his arms and they fit closer, and closer, and closer. They go slowly and still Touka moans as he enters, unable to stop herself. The feeling of it not is like the pain of their first time but something almost, _almost_ like it, a pleasure so overwhelming and hot that she melts. Her hips row and they can’t match their pace at first, but then they do, and follow it, slow, and then much faster.

The ring swings; her breasts heave. Their hands meet and their fingers lace, hard. Her legs start to pedal with a certain kind of desperation and he answers it fervently, steadily, obeying her gasped pleas until her voice comes apart against the scar on his shoulder. As soon as it does, his hands clench hers, in a rhythm that matches the thrust of his hips. Then he quivers, panting.

The ring gleams as it sways. His face is as flushed as she knows that hers is. His expression is slack with pleasure, and then, when he meets her gaze, it’s full of…something. Something that “affection” seems too superficial a label for.

“I love you.”

For a moment, she’s surprised to hear it, coming from her own mouth.

“I love you,” she repeats, feeling each word. They are more tender than flesh. They leave her even more full than she was when they were locked up between her ribs, growing larger and larger as the years passed.

His eyes are shining.

“I love you too,” he murmurs. “I love you, Touka. I hope you…that you remember that. How much I love you.”

“Alright, alright, I got it.” Now she’s embarrassed. “Don’t bother hiding it, just let it out,” Touka tells him, faking a sigh of exasperation when he starts to wipe his eyes again. He laughs, through tears, and they straighten, and she hands him a random piece of clothing, which he smothers against his face. As they rest, catching their breath, she finds herself rubbing her belly.

“Oh,” Kaneki says, “I’m sorry, was I too —?”

“No,” Touka says. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

She said it without thinking. She pauses.

_My husband. His wife._

_They._

_We._

She reaches for the cardboard box.

“So,” she says. “You brought cake. Are you going to stick around too while I choke it down?”

Kaneki blinks. “Of course,” he says. He seemed surprised; but then he smiles, warmly, and tells her, again. “Of course. Didn’t I say it earlier?”

 _I’m choosing you._ Touka swipes at her reddening cheek.

“Alright,” she murmurs. There’s a small fork taped into the box; she removes it from its plastic as Kaneki unscrews the bottle of water and holds it out, ready. She takes a breath.

“Itadakimasu.”


End file.
